Daily Archives: July 20, 2010

Strikeforce: Challengers where champions are born predictions

Strikeforce: Challengers where champions are born is ready for July 23rd, at the Comcast Arena in Everett, Washington.

MMA Crossfire expert Cassie Wiseman checks in with her main event picks on the card.

Welcome back to The Crossfire.

Image courtesy Strikeforce.

Cassie is a mixed martial artist with over five years of study. Training primarily in South Korea, she has black belts in Taekwondo, Hapkido, and Muay Thai kickboxing. A proud Canadian from Roberts Arm, Newfoundland, she files for The Crossfire from Seoul, South Korea.

Strikeforce: Challengers, where champions are born

Shane Del Rosario (9-0-0) VS Lolohea Mahe (4-1-1)

Both fighters have the majority of their wins via knockout. Therefore, these fighters should really be improving their ground game and surprise their opponent that way. In that department, the advantage goes to Rosario. He is able to weather a storm and be aggressive on his back, so Rosario will come out of this the victor via submission.

Kaufman is a beast. She comes at you with fists flying and her record proves that. Modafferi is a grappler, but she isn’t aggressive enough to handle the powerhouse she is about to do battle with. Kaufman will take this like she has taken her past nine out of eleven fights, via KO.

Prediction: Sarah Kaufman via knockout.

Mike Kyle (12-7-1) VS Abango Humphrey (5-1-0)

In this fight we have two massively built guys who have undeniable power in their hands with both having the majority of their wins via KO. Humphrey is coming off a lose against Brett Rogers, so he likely has been preparing a defense plan against Muay Thai clinches, especially since Kyle comes from that type of training. However, Kyle will use his wrestling to in the first round to prevent Humphrey from having a chance to use his fists. He’ll weigh on him to tire him out, then ground and pound for a victory.

Prediction: Mike Kyle via referee stoppage.

Cory Devela (9-4-0) VS Bobby Voelker (21-7-0)

Give Devela props for taking this fight since battling with Voelker separates the men from the boys. Despite the ratio in Devela’s record for submissions, it’s not going to amount to a whole lot against the power of Voelker. This fight won’t last past the first round with Voelker pulling out another victory via stoppage.

Prediction: Bobby Voelker via referee stoppage.

Caros Fodor (5-2-0) VS Thomas Diagne (1-1-0)

Despite the record of Diagne, he brings more to the octagon then Fodor in this match-up. Fodor has all five victories due to submissions, which should warn anyone to be weary when taking him to the mat. With that said, Diagne has diverse kicks, great take downs and superior power. It’s going to be a battle, but I’m predicting the underdog of the match – Diagne – to pull off a victory via decision.

Kovy deal might be held up…and more

Although that Ilya Kovalchuk deal looks to be held up. More here on this

Regardless of where Kovy ends up, the list of remaining available free agents isn’t one that’s going to knock you on your back, but there’s a certain allure for some.

The Pittsburgh Penguins, kind of the anti-Toronto Maple Leafs in that they’re stacked at centre but sucking wind on the wings, should make every attempt to land Paul Kariya. But with just under $3 million left under the cap, it’s going to be a tight fit for Ray Shero . . . who still needs to sign a defenceman or two.

But why Kariya?

For as long as he’s been in the league, Sidney Crosby’s never really had someone who can keep pace on his wing – Kariya’s the guy who can. He’s smart and remains lightning quick at the age of 36. Bill Guerin was a nice fit with the Penguins; Kariya would be better – a stronger skater and a guy who might sign for peanuts (as he’s done in the past) for a shot at the Cup.

Guerin, meantime, would be a solid add for Ottawa.

The Senators have about $5.5 million to spend. The complaint concerning Ottawa the past few years has been supplemental scoring help on the wing. Guerin still has some juice in the tank and he’s reportedly a solid citizen who’ll aid in the character department. And since Gary Roberts (cough) isn’t around anymore . . .

One other name and destination to consider: Willie Mitchell to Washington. The Caps have the space (although it’s tight, but where isn’t it?) and a desperate need for edge on the blue-line.

Return to Haiti: Resilience giving way to desperation

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — She comes to the National Cathedral each morning just before lunch, a 38-year-old mother of six with a face etched in sadness and exhaustion.

For the six months since a massive earthquake hit Haiti on Jan. 12, Jacqueline Aneliste has lived in the yard outside her ruined home on the outskirts of the capital city.

She has no job, no prospect of getting one, and no means to find another place to live. All she has is her faith, and it is being sorely tested.

“We have come to pray. We come here to pray every day — for strength,” says Aneliste, resting up against the locked wrought-iron gates of the cathedral.

Family members huddle with her under a grey tarp stretched out to shield them from the midday heat — an infant girl dressed in a white church dress, a woman with a leg injury left untended since the earthquake, and another lady who lies face down on a blanket, so drained of energy she does not move.

“Our house has collapsed, so we come here,” says Aneliste. “It is our only option.”

As Haitians commemorate the six-month anniversary of a disaster that left between 250,000 and 300,000 dead, the spirit of resilience that was so apparent among the population in the quake’s aftermath is being replaced with an air of desperation amid a recovery effort beset by problems.

An estimated 1.5 million Haitians, most of them in Port-au-Prince, continue to live in makeshift camps squeezed into former parks, soccer pitches and abandoned garbage dumps. Virtually every open space not filled with rubble is still covered in tents.

Plans by President Rene Preval to move tens of thousands of displaced Haitians into new semi-permanent communities have foundered due to myriad factors — from the government’s lack of capacity, to land disputes to resurgent corruption.

Of more than $5 billion pledged by international donors to aid in the recovery, just two per cent has been delivered for lack of a viable recovery plan.

An interim reconstruction commission headed by former U.S. president Bill Clinton and Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive held its first meeting only in June.

The halting start to rebuilding Haiti produced a scathing report by the U.S. Senate foreign relations committee in advance of the earthquake’s six-month anniversary. The committee cited “worrisome signs that the rebuilding process in Haiti has stalled” now that immediate humanitarian relief needs have been met.

The senators put much of the blame on Preval and his government for failing not only to act, but even to communicate to Haitians that it is in charge and leading the rebuilding effort.

“As the sense of immediate crisis has subsided, so has the sense of urgency to take bold action — the ‘reimagination of Haiti’ hoped for months ago — and the commitment to prevent a return to the dysfunctional, unsustainable ways of life past,” the report said.

While foreign donors, such as the U.S., are frustrated, Haitians themselves are growing increasingly angry and impatient because they face constant reminders of how little has been done.

Each day, Port-au-Prince’s residents wake up to a city seemingly frozen in time. The presidential palace still lies in ruins, with no evidence of construction activity, providing critics with a handy metaphor for the Preval administration’s impotence.

The iconic Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Port-au-Prince, where Aneliste has come to pray, remains as it was on Jan. 12 — catastrophically damaged and surrounded by its own rubble. Worshippers pray in tents erected in the church’s courtyard.

In recent weeks, Haitians have taken to the streets in several antigovernment demonstrations, but the most common form of protest can be found in the graffiti spray-painted on the walls of fallen buildings.

“Aba Preval” — down with Preval — is a favourite complaint. At a street near Port-au-Prince’s Toussaint L’Ouverture airport, residents hung a banner on July 3 wishing happy birthday to exiled dictator Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, and urging his return. Pro-Duvalier graffiti also abounds.

What progress that has been made in Port-au-Prince since Jan. 12 is in the homeless camps, which seem to be in transition from temporary to permanent settlements.

Residents have worked alongside dozens of aid groups to improve living conditions by digging new latrines and drainage trenches to keep the summer rains from flooding out tents. Non-governmental organizations continue to provide medical care at camps like the one at the Petionville golf course, home to 50,000 people since the earthquake.

“We came up with a saying, the Haitians are so resilient they are being punished for it,” says Brad Fraser, a paramedic with Canadian Medical Assistance Teams, which ran a mobile hospital in the Petionville camp.

Fraser spent two weeks in Port-au-Prince at the end of June.

“You can tell it’s getting harder the longer people live there,” he says. “I got a sense that the women are just about at wit’s end because they are so tired.”

Shelter remains the biggest need, and the biggest source of tension — especially with the onset of hurricane season.

Promises that camp residents would be relocated to safer, more permanent communities have gone largely unfulfilled. The U.S. Senate foreign relations committee described the Preval government’s relocation plans as still in “early draft form.”

One of the few new government-selected shelter communities — at Corail-Cesse Lesse, 16 kilometres north of Port-au-Prince — is so remote its 5,000 residents have little mobility or opportunity to find employment in the city.

The Corail camp has better tents and sanitation facilities for residents who have moved from temporary shelters at the Petionville camp. But the new camp is located on an open plain in full exposure to the Caribbean sun.

Residents take refuge inside their tents, where temperatures are often much hotter.

“This piece of land, not a good area to drop people. There was no infrastructure here,” says Mary Kate MacIsaac, a Canadian aid worker with World Vision International.

World Vision participated in the Corail project despite concerns about its location and because it wanted to be in “solidarity” with the Haitians who were moved into the new shelters.

“Given that those people didn’t have any other choice, we wanted to try to help,” MacIsaac says.

“It’s not how we would like to plan for things. These things take more planning. But we’re doing the best with what we were given.”

Other shelter projects are also facing similar challenges.

The Canadian Red Cross has announced plans to build 7,500 transitional hurricane-proof shelters in the cities of Jacmel and Leogane. To date, a few dozen prototypes have been erected as the Red Cross searches for suitable land to begin large-scale production.

“A lot of space is occupied by the rubble. Basically, there is a lack of land where we can put up those shelters,” explains Jean-Philippe Tizi, the Canadian Red Cross’s director of Haiti operations. “We don’t have a large green field where we could build a large number of shelters for a large number of families.”

Other complications include the lack of quality building materials in Haiti and long delays in clearing imported products through Haitian customs.

The Canadian Red Cross expects its first material shipment of 500 shelters by the end of July, then hopes to deliver 1,000 a month through December. The plan is to complete all 7,500 before October 2011.

“We are pressing as much as we can. It is never fast enough, because people are in need of more durable, more solid shelter,” Tizi says. “At the same time, the issues are numerous and are very, very difficult to deal with.”

Some districts in Port-au-Prince seem to have been almost entirely forgotten as aid resources are deployed elsewhere.

Only 100 metres of
f the main airport road in Port-au-Prince, 11,000 people are living in some of the most rudimentary conditions in the city. The residents in the Automeca camp — so named because it sprang up on land once occupied by car dealerships — lack the high-quality tents provided by aid groups in other areas.

Their homes are covered in emergency tarps that have grown more ragged by the month. Many of the shelters sit tight up against outdoor toilets.

“It’s very bad here. We have been having food problems for months,” says Arnold Coriste, 48, a member of the Automeca camp committee. “We don’t receive aid from the NGOs. They promise a lot of stuff, but they don’t come.”

Boucicault Innocente, another member of the camp committee, said three quarters of the residents have suffered from heat stroke.

“There is no place to take a bath, no showers, no electricity. There is a lot of mud,” Innocente says. “We have so many people living near the toilets. They are so many flies. People are getting sick.”

Camp residents say they rarely see United Nations security forces or the Haitian national police. Instead, camp leaders enlisted 104 residents as security guards. Many have quit because the job paid no wages.

“My life is very difficult. Every day — I do nothing but drink and smoke,” says D’Haiti Diarabon, who has lived at the Automeca camp for three months.

“I have one son and one daughter to protect, my mom, too. But I can’t do nothing in Haiti. I hate it here.”

As bad as conditions are the Automeca camp — and others — they may be about to get worse. Most of the camps are located on private land and owners are increasingly seeking to evict the displaced Haitians.

Several hundred families at Automeca agreed to leave after the landowner offered them $200. The newly-vacant land is now being cleared for conversion into a parking lot and gas station.

The problem is many camp residents who are forced to move have nowhere better to go.

“The landlord said if they don’t move, he will come with a bulldozer,” Innocente says.

“We can’t do anything because the landlord is rich. He can buy anyone.”

Even as Preval’s government is being blamed for being ineffective, Haiti’s recovery is being hampered by myriad other issues. While there has been an outpouring of donations to charitable organizations working in Haiti, co-ordinating the activities of hundreds of aid groups — some established but many small and lacking capability to deliver services — has added another layer of challenge.

Veteran aid workers say they have never worked in an urban disaster environment as complex as Port-au-Prince, where social services, quality health care and the school system were lacking even before the earthquake.

Add 20 million cubic metres of rubble into the mix and officials say the task of rebuilding defies easy solution.

“This is the hardest thing that any of us have done in a long, long time,” says David Morley, president of Save The Children Canada, which has been providing food, water and aid to children and adults living in the camps.

“I live in downtown Toronto. Can you imagine every single major road in Toronto, every other building being destroyed, and there’s rubble — and it goes on for miles,” Morley says. “How would we cope if we had to live with that?”

Back at the National Cathedral, as she waits for the locked gates to open, Jacqueline Aneliste covers her eyes when asked whether she believes life will improve in Haiti. After a few moments, she pulls her hand away to reveal tears streaming down her cheeks.

“I don’t know,” she says. “It is in God’s hands.”

Jacqueline Aneliste sits at the gates of National Cathedral in Port-au-Prince.

Do Zombies Run Or Lurch?

It’s a question that has haunted — and yes, divided — the zombie community. And with good reason, because it’s really fundamental. If they can run, well, look out.

A few months ago, we were talking to George A. Romero — Grandfather of the Zombie Movie, King of the Undead, Re-animator of the Genre — about his new film, Survival of the Dead, which comes out on video at the end of August. So we put the question to him: running or lurching?

“Lurching,” Romero said. “You have to shamble, man. You can’t run. In 28 Days Later they ran, but they’re not dead. They ran in the remake of Dawn of the Dead. What did they do? Immediately join a health club? Come on. Their ankles would snap.”

Ay, mate, back to Australia for Celebrity

I’m no Perry Mason when it come to the kind of investigating that produces cruise scoops, although in the last little while Disney’s coming to Vancouver and ships’ pulling out of Alaska for this season were two successful results.

Several months ago, I came across a comment by someone who responded to a Blog saying that Celebrity was in Australia in search of dock space — about a year after leaving. I suggested that could be the start of a comeback.

Now, all of this is hardly going to get me a P.I. license, and a reality show is not in the cards, but it felt good yesterday when Celebrity announced its return to Australia. In 2011-12, the Century will be going Down Under.

Marking the line’s first presence there in two years is Celebrity’s exotic new Australia and New Zealand season — book-ended by a series of vacation options in Hawaii. The itineraries feature 36 ports in six countries: Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, French Polynesia, the U.S. and Mexico. The line-up includes 10 itineraries with six departure ports, including Sydney and Perth (Fremantle) in Australia, and Auckland in New Zealand.

An 18-night “Pacific Jewels” voyage departs Honolulu on November 11, 2011, followed by five 12- and 13-night New Zealand cruises between Sydney and Auckland, including a festive holiday sailing departing Sydney on Christmas Eve. These offer a more destination-rich experience for cruisers, with only three days at sea.

Cruisers also have the opportunity to experience a 36-night circumnavigation voyage — a first for Celebrity — through two combinable 18-night sailings. The first will sail around the southern portion of Australia, featuring an overnight stay in Sydney and transit through three sounds — Milford, Doubtful and Dusky — in New Zealand’s World Heritage-designated Fiordland National Park. The second sailing takes cruisers around Australia’s northern coast, and features a visit to the idyllic island of Bali, Indonesia.

The new series also includes two 18-night Transpacific voyages that feature visits to the French Polynesian islands and Hawaii.

Since Century is going to Australia, what about Celebrity’s previously announced Caribbean cruises out of Baltimore? Well, they’re gone, and guests with reservations on the Century from Baltimore in 2011-12 will be contacted by Celebrity.

BURSTING ‘OFFICER BUBBLES’

In the last few days, a video produced for The Real News by my colleagues Nazrul Islam and Jesse Freeston has officially gone viral – over 200,000 views on YouTube. The following is a blog that Jesse wrote giving context to the “Officer Bubbles” story. You will find links to the key videos at the end of the blog.

The video depicts 20-year-old Courtney Winkels, a social worker from outside Toronto, blowing bubbles near a line of police during the G20 summit of world leaders. Const. Adam Josephs, as of yesterday better known as ‘Officer Bubbles’, appears on the scene to inform Winkels that “if the bubble touches me, you’re going to be arrested for assault.” Winkels puts the bubbles away while continuing to receive arrest threats from the officer. Moments later, Winkels is arrested.I wish Winkels arrest could be chalked up to one officer’s absurd overreaction to bubbles. The truth, unfortunately, is that Winkels would have been arrested that day regardless of her bubbles.

The police line you see in the video was stopping people from walking near the G20 convergence space, a place where people opposed to the G20 gathered to eat, sleep, and discuss. On this day, police were detaining a group heading home to Montreal, and minutes after the bubbles incident, they quickly sealed in Winkels and everyone else that had gathered to watch. Winkels was one of roughly twenty to be arrested, while dozens more were detained for more than two hours. Those not arrested were only released after showing identification, submitting to a search, and filling out a ‘contact card’ that goes on their file at the police department. All representing violations of Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

There’s more to the story, much of which is contained in another video published in conjunction with ‘Officer Bubbles’. In fact, the ‘Officer Bubbles’ video was intended to be no more than an ‘appendix’ to the longer video. The ‘appendix’ was intended in order to show all the footage we had of that particularly curious, and now famous, exchange. Intention, however, plays no role in the wacky world of YouTube. For only a few days later, Nazrul and I found ourselves watching a panel of law professionals on Fox News debating the legality of arresting someone for blowing bubbles. (For the record, host and lawyer Megyn Kelly concluded the segment by siding with the cop, calling Winkels a “punk”.)

As for Winkels, now released she faces charges of ‘Conspiracy to Mischief’. According to her, the charges were pressed after medical supplies were discovered in her bag. If that’s the case, Winkels would be one of numerous street medics and others carrying protective equipment to be jailed amongst the roughly 1100 organizers, residents, concerned parents, journalists, and other people that made up the largest mass arrest in Canadian history.

So, the focus on whether or not Winkels should be arrested for blowing bubbles, while understandably entertaining, is yet another shift away from discussing what really happened in Toronto. Much of the Canadian media has fixated on individual cases of police misconduct, debating whether or not individual officers abused their authority. I know because I was the subject of a similar debate after being punched in the face by an officer while filming police misconduct. In the numerous interviews I did on my experience, my attempts to situate the attack in the broader context was routinely edited out in favor of framing the event as a personal interest story, stripped of all context and significance. Viewers were left cursing (or praising) one overly aggressive officer instead of pondering the systemic violation of peoples’ rights to assembly, expression, due process, free press, and freedom from unreasonable search and seizure.

Still further from the light is any investigation as to who ordered such a citywide violation, and more importantly, why?

Police argue the suspension of rights was necessary to respond to the destruction of property that took place on Saturday afternoon. Many facts stand in the way of this, not the least of which being all the home raids, targeted arrests, and illegal searches that took place before a single bank window was smashed.

“We’re in a period where there’s been massive job losses and cuts to social services, and that’s only going to intensify as the austerity measures passed at the G20 come into effect,” says Farrah Miranda of the migrant rights organization No One Is Illegal. In this setting, Miranda calls the crackdown an attempt to “silence and intimidate” dissidents. If she’s right, it hasn’t worked on her. Miranda was one of the community organizers targeted on the Saturday morning, pulled out of a taxicab by plain-clothes officers and put in an unmarked minivan.

So, consider this my mea culpa for the role we played in opening up another tent at the post-G20 circus. Come one! Come all! Place your bets on who provoked who . . . Was it the cop? Or was it the demonstrator?

Just don’t ask why they were facing off in the first place. Here are three video reports that give all of this more context: